But scientists and disaster experts investigating the Deepwater Horizon explosion are advocating for better alternatives to the broad ban -- and the administration ought to listen and end the moratorium's economic choke hold on our region.

In an interim report, the Deepwater Horizon Study Group is offering safety measures that could quickly make drilling safer while allowing some rigs to resume operations. The measures would increase oversight of wells, especially those with troubled safety records. They also would improve safety industrywide, especially in blowout preventers, inspection procedures and worker training.

Robert Bea, a University of California Berkeley engineering professor who is in the study group, told Bloomberg News that regulators should halt drilling "on a case-by-case basis" and not indiscriminately.

Specifically, the group called for regulators to focus on wells with "a history of abnormal repetitive well-control events" or substandard or poorly tested blowout preventers. They suggested new requirements for blowout preventers and that an individual regulator be assigned to every troubled rig to ensure compliance with safety requirements. They also suggested that a centralized authority staffed by petroleum engineers monitor deepwater wells, with the authority to immediately shut down any rig flouting the rules. Mr. Bea equated it to the power of "a bank examiner who closes the bank, then asks for explanations."

Other alternatives to the moratorium have been identified before, even by the federal government itself.

The draft of a May 27 report prepared by the Interior Department on the Deepwater Horizon explosion called for a much more tailored moratorium for new drilling permits, according to scientists who were consulted for the report. For existing rigs, the report proposed "a temporary pause" to complete additional tests on blowout preventers and well barriers. But those sensible recommendations got turned into the broad six-month moratorium in the report's final version, without the scientists' knowledge.

According to Mr. Bea, Interior officials indicated that the White House wanted the moratorium included in the report's final version. That means that politics trumped science in a decision with serious implications for the economy of the Gulf and the rest of the nation.

Ongoing investigations in Congress and by a joint board of the Coast Guard and the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement also have singled out measures to improve safety without completely halting deepwater drilling. Those include mandating tests and existing industry practices that can prevent well blowouts but that are not now mandatory and were not used on the Deepwater Horizon.

Through it all, administration officials have been unwilling to bend on the moratorium and have been impervious to the economic damage it's causing to our economy. That's why it's important that the president's commission on the oil spill, which also received a copy of the study group's interim report, endorse the scientists' advice.

William Reilly, former head of the Environmental Protection Agency and co-chairman of the oil spill commission, said that recent hearings in New Orleans opened his eyes to "the economic dislocation being experienced here." Former Florida Sen. Bob Graham, the panel's other co-chair, said he was disturbed by a "disconnect between Washington and the Gulf region about the sense of urgency needed."

The commission leaders have the ear of the White House. They can help bridge that disconnect and urge the administration to adopt the alternative safety measures scientists are recommending.